1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to travel costs, and more particularly to systems and methods for minimizing travel costs for multi-night stays.
2. Background and Related Art
Many individuals have travel needs for business or pleasure. Travelers incur many costs when traveling, including transportation, food, and lodging costs. Each traveler has certain priorities when traveling: some travelers most value convenience and a high-quality experience, while other travelers seek to minimize traveling costs. For example, some business travelers have very tight schedules and business expectations and may be traveling at company expense. Such business travelers may therefore be willing to spend more to guarantee a highest level of convenience and comfort. Meanwhile, a family on a tight budget might be very cost conscious and may be willing to deal with some inconvenience to get the best price on their travel options.
The travel industry has evolved solutions attempting to address the varying needs of different types of travel consumers. Travelers can select between first class and coach seats when selecting flights, and can often select between direct flights between destinations at a higher cost and multi-leg flights between the same destinations at a lower cost. Travelers can also select between more luxurious accommodations or less luxurious accommodations within a hotel, or may select between various available hotels based on quality of the hotel and/or based on proximity to a location of interest. Similar decisions can be made with respect to nearly every aspect of travel, from food to entertainment to rental vehicles and so forth.
Traditional travel agents evolved to advise travelers and to help travelers intelligently select among the various options when traveling. Travel agents also often helped make travel-associated reservations, including for lodging, airfare or other transportation, tours and entertainment, and the like. With the advent of the Internet, online travel agencies (OTAs) have been created and have evolved to provide many of the same functions to consumers. Some OTAs have focused on a particular aspect of travel (e.g. transportation, lodging, entertainment), and other OTAs attempt to more generally provide information and booking options for multiple aspects of travel. In addition to third-party OTAs, some lodging and transportation providers are providing similar features. Examples of existing OTAs include Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, Hotwire, Priceline.com, Hotels.com, Booking.com, among others. Additionally, some parties, such as Kayak, Mobissimo, and Travago, aggregate travel search results and options from multiple OTAs into a single location for presentation to the consumer. Furthermore, many travel providers provide OTA-like services directly to consumers.
In a typical user experience, a consumer may visit a website of an OTA and may enter desired travel options, such as expected dates and locations of travel, desired class of transportation or lodging, etc., as well as whether the consumer is flexible in either travel dates or location. The OTA then searches available deals and presents search results to the consumer through the website. Depending on the function of the OTA, the OTA may search only deals under its own contracts with providers, or it may search available deals through other providers, including potentially through other OTAs. The results are often presented to the user using a view selected to convey certain travel options to the consumer. For example, the view may be a list view showing a list of options and associated costs, potentially along with other information about the options. As another example, the view may be a calendar view showing variations in pricing if the dates of the travel are varied. As another example, the view may be a matrix view, with various axes of the matrix illustrating various travel options, and with price and potentially other options located in each of the cells of the matrix. Regardless, information may be presented to the consumer using any of a number of views, and OTAs are continually evaluating the best way in which to present information and changing how information is displayed.
Consumers utilize OTAs to research and obtain the best travel deals, and often use the OTAs to book or reserve travel accommodations and amenities. One particular use of OTAs or other travel providers, whether online or not, is to obtain lodging accommodations, including multi-night stays. Most consumers think of multi-night stays and other aspects of travel as a unit having a single price that can be compared across various providers (either lodging providers directly or through OTAs) and do not consider that multi-night stays are actually made up of an itinerary of single-night stays that often vary in rate depending on many daily factors such as demand, holidays, and the like. OTAs and other travel providers do not help consumers overcome their misunderstanding, and consumers are therefore unlikely to understand the factors that make up the rates they are quoted by the various OTAs.
Despite all the advances that have occurred in recent years, existing OTAs still are unable to ensure that cost-conscious consumers are able to get the best possible deal on their travel needs.